Who Shot Mr. Burns?
Part 1 At the beginning of the normal ordinary school week, Principal Skinner opens up the school to find that Superdude, the 4th grade gerbil, has died. He gives Groundskeeper Willie the task of burying the gerbil, and in the process Willie strikes oil. Meanwhile, up on the roof, Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers are inspecting what caused the explosion when a worker comes up and tells them they struck oil. He also holds up the corpse of Superdude. After thanking Superdude, he tosses the gerbil off the roof. Everyone in the school rejoices, as now they have all the money they could ever want. Several teachers want new equipment, Willie wants a crystal slop bucket, and Lisa wants to hire Tito Puente to teach jazz at the school. However, Charles Montgomery Burns has his eyes on the well, and wants to steal the oil (since Smithers forbid him from literally stealing candy from a baby.) First he tries to get Skinner to give the money to the Nuclear Plant by poorly disguising himself as Jimbo Jones, but to no avail. Finally, he uses a "slant drilling" operation to tap the well before the school can, thereby stealing the oil. After launching the oil, it causes some mayhem in the town. The jet of oil smashes into Bart's treehouse, leaving it in a wreck and breaking Santa's Little Helper's legs. The drill also crushes the ground under Grampa's retirement home, and the fumes from the oil force Moe's Tavern to close. And of course, all the faculty and Lisa don't get their special equipment (and Tito Puente) because the school is now bankrupt from building the oil well, and some of the faculty (including Groundskeeper Willie) are laid off as a result of the same bankruptcy. All of these people (and Homer, who flips out when Burns can't remember his name one too many times) swear revenge on the old man. Not even Smithers can stand the acts his beloved employer has undertaken, sarcastically saying that Burns has crushed all his enemies: An old folks home, the local tavern and Springfield Elementary. Burns says he hasn't taken out his biggest enemy: the sun. He plans to block out the sun, thereby forcing the town to use his electricity forever. Smithers says he's stood by enough of Burns schemes but this one is too much and says he will have no part of it. Burns then fires him. Mayor Quimby calls a town meeting, after noticing that many in the audience are stroking guns, he opens the floor. Several people complain: Mr. Smithers tells everyone that since Mr. Burns fired him, he has become a drunken wreck and always watches Comedy Central; Moe is mad that he lost his bar; Barney is mad that he lost Moe's bar; Lisa is mad that he robbed the school of music; Skinner is mad that he robbed the school of financial security; Tito is mad that he "robbed the school of Tito"; Homer is mad that he can't remember his name; Marge is mad that he is making everyone yell; and Bart is mad that he broke Santa's Little Helper's legs (although he initially said "look what he did to my friend" which caused people to assume that Mr. Burns did something horrible to Milhouse until Bart clarified that he meant Santa's Little Helper). Mr. Burns then shows up, and Bart charges at him in rage. Mr. Burns brandishes a gun hidden in his jacket, stating that he has decided to protect himself ever since he was attacked in his office by an unidentified assailant (Homer, of course). Burns moves the machine into place, blocks out the sun, and as he leaves, it is noticed that many townspeople are missing. A gunshot is heard, and Mr. Burns staggers out of an alleyway, collapsing onto the sundial, shot. Marge then comments that they may never know who did this, since everyone in town is a suspect. After a long silence Dr Hibbert, with his trademark chuckle says "Well I couldn't possibly solve this mystery. Can ''YOU?" pointing at the screen, at what is thought to be the viewer. The camera zooms out to show that he is pointing to Chief Wiggum, who says he will give it a shot, since it is his job. An ominous tune plays after this. The words ''To Be Continued appear onscreen. Part 2 Waylon Smithers wakes up in his apartment and hears someone taking a shower in his bathroom. When Smithers opens the shower door, he finds Mr. Burns, alive. After Smithers decides the events of the previous night were a dream, Burns announces that the year is 1965 and that he and Smithers are undercover detectives on the Hotrod circuit, in some imaginary T.V series called Speedway Squad. Smithers wakes up again to find his detective work was a dream, his apartment is still a wreck, and that his mouth still tastes like an ashtray (which is quickly revealed that he was eating cigarette butts). Kent Brockman reports on Mr. Burns assault. He was pronounced dead until transferred to a better hospital where doctors "upgraded" his condition to alive. After Brockman speaks to Chief Wiggum, it is revealed that two witnesses are already being questioned: Maggie and Santa's Little Helper, as they were both in the area when Burns was shot. Naturally, neither of them talk. At the Simpson residence, Lisa says that everyone in Springfield had a reason for shooting Mr. Burns, even themselves. Everyone starts arguing amongst themselves about who did it, when Marge announces that there is already a prime suspect: Waylon Smithers. Smithers is already starting to wonder if he himself shot down Mr. Burns in a drunken rage. When he finds a recently fired gun in his jacket, he remembers that after he left the town meeting, he ran into some old man on the way home, and shot him. Smithers bursts into tears, crying, "What have I done?" Moe, Barney, Lenny and Carl arrive at Homer's house and ask if he wants to come and help pull down Burns’ sun blocker. With the help of Snake, Otto, Groundskeeper Willie and the Bumblebee Man, they snap the machine in half. The sun blocker crashes into Shelbyville, much to everyone's delight. Smithers, meanwhile is driven mad by guilt and goes to a Catholic church and confess his sins. When he finishes, Chief Wiggum (who was in the confessional instead of a priest) emerges and takes Smithers in for questioning. Both the police and the press interrogate Smithers. At a press conference, Smithers cracks a Madonna gag to Kent Brockman. Krusty, who is watching the TV at the time, claims it was his joke, but Sideshow Mel says that Krusty stole it from an episode of Pardon My Zinger. Mel remembers that Smithers once said that he never missed an episode of that show, which airs on Comedy Central at 3pm, the very time Burns was shot. Mel heads for the station to point this out and Smithers recalls that he left the town meeting early to get home in time, and that the old man he ran into on the way was Jasper. The police and Smithers head for the newly repaired retirement home to check on Jasper and discover that Smithers did shoot him, but in the wooden leg. With the prime suspect cleared, the police continue to investigate the matter. Lisa decides to help by making a chart of all the other major suspects. However, she forgets about Tito Puente, and when she tells the police (when Wiggum points out he's a suspect) that he did vow revenge, the police go to check him out. However, the kind of revenge Tito has in mind is an insulting, albeit catchy, tune; Tito is cleared. Skinner is next on the list, but the police clear him when he tells the police that he did go to the town meeting to ambush Burns, but he was in the lavatory applying his camouflage make-up at the time of the shooting. Superintendent Chalmers can vouch for Skinner's whereabouts as he entered the lavatory at the time of the assault too, just as Skinner realized he had taken his mother's make-up kit instead of his camo make-up (Skinner is quick to point out anything else Chalmers tells the police "is a filthy lie!"). The police questioned Willie next but he claimed it was impossible for him to fire a gun as he had crippling arthritis in his index fingers from playing Space Invaders in 1977. The police eliminated Moe as a suspect with the help of a lie detector, though Moe is utterly humiliated in the process. At the Simpson house, Marge discovers that Grandpa's gun, which she buried in the backyard, is missing and asks Grandpa where it is. After he complains that people blame him for everything, Marge leaves. Grandpa removes the gun itself from his sweater, stroking it and telling it that he had missed it bad. At the station, Wiggum prepares to pour some coffee, but after finding out he is out of coffee, he drinks some warm cream. He begins to dream, during which time Lisa tells him to check Burns' suit for more clues. While checking the suit, he finds an eyelash and tests it for DNA. Wiggum finds that the eyelash matches Simpson DNA. At the same time, Burns wakes up from his coma and cries, "Homer Simpson!" The police raid the Simpson home for more information. A gun is found in under the seat of Homer's car. Homer claims he has never seen the gun before in his life, but his fingerprints are all over it. When Wiggum discovers that the bullets in the gun match the one they took out of Mr. Burns, he arrests Homer for attempted murder. Later, while Wiggum and the cops stop at Krusty Burger. Due to the trucks height, they are unable to enter the drive-thru. Wiggum decides to drive up the curb, which succeeds until Wiggum takes the food, the imbalance of weight causes the truck to tip, damaging the back doors in the process. Homer seizes this chance and he escapes from the police, heading for the hospital. At the station, Waylon Smithers offers a $50,000 reward for Homer's capture, dead or alive. Lisa returns to the scene of the crime and, with the help of an intelligent pigeon, learns the identity of Burns' true assailant. At the hospital, Dr. Nick discovers some startling information as well. When Mr. Burns shouted "Homer Simpson!" he wasn't giving the name of his gunman, it was because "Homer Simpson" was all he could say. The doctor leaves, and Homer himself, who had successfully infiltrated the hospital and reached Burns' ward, prepares to silence Burns for telling everybody that Homer shot him. A police bulletin reports that Homer has been spotted at the hospital. Lisa, the police, and the rest of Springfield race to the hospital. Lisa gets there first, protesting to everybody that her father wouldn't hurt a fly. On entering the ward, everyone finds Homer shaking Mr. Burns vigorously, telling him to stop telling everyone that Homer shot him. As Homer continues to shake him, Burns finds his voice and asks, "Smithers, who is this beast that's shaking me?" Homer yells at the top of his lungs,"D'oh!" snatches a gun from Wiggum and shouts at Burns to tell everyone that he never shot him. Mr. Burns laughs, stating that Homer doesn't have the cranial capacity nor the right amount of fingers to use a gun. And with that, Burns reveals his assailant to be Maggie Simpson. Burns begins telling his story from the point where he left the town meeting. With the success of his sun-blocker, he had felt like celebrating. He walked into the parking lot to find Maggie, alone, in the Simpson car. She appeared to be smiling. He asked what she was so happy about, and she held up a lollipop. Homer pulls that very same sucker out of his shirt pocket; he had picked it up off the car floor when he was searching for an ice cream cone he had dropped. It was also there that he had absent-mindedly handled the gun, which explained why his fingerprints were all over it. Burns had tried to wrestle the candy away from Maggie, which was proving difficult. Eventually, his gun fell out of its holster into Maggie's hand and she fired it at him, although you can barely see her pull the trigger. The gun and lollipop then fell out of her hands underneath the car seat. Mr. Burns, losing strength, tried to find aid, but finding only a useless Jimbo, he gave up and collapsed on the sundial, where he used his last ounce of strength to suck out his gold fillings and swallowed them so as to keep paramedics from stealing them. Mr. Burns demands that Maggie be arrested, despite Marge's protests that the whole ordeal was an accident. Wiggum says that no jury in the world will convict a baby—except maybe Texas. Marge also adds that the shooting must have been an accident, but a final focus on Maggie's eyes suggests otherwise... Category:Episodes Category:The Simpsons Episodes